The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 392: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A NIGHT ADVENTURE 3805 for a burelary. In this hope he had been disappointed, but while thus loitering about, he had seen Lady Saxondale go in and out of the mansion. He had recognized her as the same beautiful woman he had seen in Lincolnshire nearly twenty years back, and thus was it that he at once knew her now, as peeping through that half-opened door he beheld her seated in a mood of deep abstraction at the table. A glance rapidly flung around the room where Lady Saxondale was thus observed at once showed the Cannibal not merely that she was alone, but likewise that there was no other door open by which any sudden cry of alarm to which she might give vent would issue forth. He therefore resolved upon taking a desperate step in order to reap a handsome harvest from his present enterprise; and making a sign for Tony Wilkins to stop where he was for the instant, the Cannibal passed stealthily into the room. So deep was Lady Saxondale’s abstraction, that she per- ceived him not. Her looks were fixed on the book which lay open before her, but she saw not the pages themselves, — all her faculty of vision was as it were turned inward with the absorbing nature of her meditations. For Lady Saxon- dale had this night experienced no inclination to retire to rest. The image of William Deveril appeared to haunt her. She loved him, and she hated him at one and the same time. She feared that she had taken a false step and compromised herself seriously, in having made the round of all her ac- quaintances and friends during the day and promulgated her story relative to that young man. Cunningly devised as the tale was, she trembled lest the refutation which Deveril would give when it reached his ears might obtain credit; and thus, though great was the satisfaction she had experienced at the time, not only in torturing Lady Florina, but likewise in propagating the same scandal elsewhere, she was now apprehensive that the blow she had endeav- oured to deal might rebound upon herself. In short, her feelings, having been unnaturally excited during the day, had since experienced a proportionate reaction, and con- science, which “ makes cowards of us all,’ was not per- mitting Lady Saxondale to be an exception to that rule. Besides, she was not only fearful that the tangled web she had been thus weaving would in the long run enmesh herself, but she was tortured with the pangs of jealousy COnNIEOOOkKS (S(O)